DS9's 2019 Losses...

2019 was a bad year for Deep Space Nine! 

First, Aron Eisenberg passed away September 21st.  Eisenberg ended up becoming the most successful of DS9's much-celebrated recurring guest stars when he was featured in his own episode during the final season, "It's Only a Paper Moon," in which Nog, Quark's nephew, grapples with PTSD with the help of holosuite lounge singer Vic Fontaine.  Having debuted as a naive youth, best friend of Jake Sisko, Eisenberg helped revolutionize the portrayal of Ferengi perhaps more than even Quark, rejecting his people's ideals even more radically than his father Rom, joining Starfleet and enjoying great success in his new career.  The What We Left Behind documentary, which I watched not long before Eisenberg's death, captures a bittersweet moment when the show's writers reunite to break an imaginary new episode, in which Nog is quickly killed off, with a quick cut to a distraught Eisenberg.  We would have mourned Nog, and we mourn Eisenberg himself greatly.

Then Rene Auberjonois!  The actor behind the CGI shapeshifting and rubber mask of Odo passed away December 8th.  Auberjonois had a number of distinguished roles during his career, including portraying father Mulcahy in the original film version of MASH, a supporting role in the long-running TV series Benson, and the chef in The Little Mermaid.  Star Trek fans also saw him in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, and Batman fans caught him in Batman Forever.  My favorite memory of him outside of Star Trek was The Patriot, which sees his dramatic death include a thrilling hand-off of a musket to Mel Gibson.  It's really hard to imagine the legacy of the Star Trek franchise without him.  DS9 itself would be infinitely poorer without Odo, and without Auberjonois brilliantly portraying him.  Not even considering Odo's specific relationships with Kira or Quark, his role in the series is still unique within the franchise, the kind of gruff even Bones could never approach, but the kind of gruff you want to have around, certainly for station's chief of security (Cardassian or Starfleet).

(It should be noted that the imagined new episode of the series mentioned above had two roles not specifically needed in the plot, and they were both played by these actors.  A curse!)

They will be greatly missed.